Monday, February 6, 2017

Quick Thoughts

Now that the Super Bowl is over, here are a couple quick thoughts.

● First, f*&% you Patriots. Your win was @#*&$^ #$@!% bull$%$@ #$^@#$$ and also #$^%%# well-deserved #@#$%%@ #$%@@#$ choke on a #@$%. In all seriousness, congratulations to Boston, the whiniest, most racist city in America. May you all drink yourselves into a stupor tonight and wake up in a gutter in Lowell. You've earned it... Massholes.

● California has been talking about leaving the union or not paying their taxes. They've been working under the assumption that California only gets $0.78 back on every dollar it sends to Washington. Well, it turns out that's not true. A new study by the state itself found that they get back $0.99. What's more this study fails to account for the housing deduction and the deduction for state income tax. With those, I suspect California gets way more than it pays. Personally, I think we should test it. Let's push California out and see what happens.

● This weekend's Trump outrages have fallen to the level of voodoo with body language experts telling us that Trump has issues based on where he places his hands and legs, and we had a shrink declare him unstable and trending toward crazy. It's sad when it comes to this kind of idiotic smear. But that's where they've ended up. Why? Well, it's quickly turning out that all the stories they've been telling aren't true. Indeed:

● Australia continues to deny the phone call. As does Mexico. BTW, the AP and CNN not only report different tones in the conversation, with the AP calling the supposedly offending language "lighthearted", but they reported different words being used despite supposedly both using the same "transcript." CNN later reported that rather than threatening to send the military to do what Mexico won't, Trump offered to send our military to help. Slight difference there... 'want help?' v. 'I might invade your ass!'

● The talk that Trump was lifting sanction on the Russian intelligence service was false. It turns out this was a technical fix planned by Obama and executed now.

● Do you remember how Trump issued the immigration Executive Order without the knowledge or input of Homeland Security and Justice? Well, Homeland Security denies this and said they knew about it. And a memo CNN got their hands on shows that Justice approved the Executive Order. So much for the whole smear.

● Wait, there's more! Remember how Steven Bannon went to Homeland Security behind Trump's back to convince them to apply the order to green cards? Never happened. Everyone denies it and visitor logs prove it. And the same reporter who started this (Josh Rogin from WashPo) also created the story about the "entire leadership team at the State Department quitting" when those people were but six of dozens and they had resigned before Trump took office. A simple look at State's Organizational chart would have disproved the story to Rogin.

● There was a story about Trump firing Secret Service people. That never happened either.

● Oh, and that "conservative, Bush-appointee" who struck down Trump's executive order also told the cops in a recent hearing that "black lives matter." Hmm.

● Some people are threatening to boycott Budweiser for their Super Bowl ad in which they traced the path of their founder, an immigrant from Germany. I saw the ad and thought it was in the best of American traditions, honoring the very kinds of people who built America and established the American dream. Boycotting this is idiotic.

That said, 84 Lumber just shot themselves in the pantalones. 84 Lumber is an East Coast version of Home Depot, kind of. Their customer base is white guys with plumber's crack. Yet, they paid for a Super Bowl ad that featured a little Mexican girl and her mother who brave the elements to sneak across deserts and harsh landscapes filled with predators to make it to the US. That's right, their ad glorifies illegal immigrants from Mexico... the same people taking the jobs from the white guys with plumber's crack. Stupid.

● Finally, there was an interesting article about polls this weekend. It said that three polls that use robot calls and fair questions put Trump's approval ratings at a positive, with most having him between 51-55% pro and 46% con. That's consistent with historical precedent, so I suspect that's true. The polls that have him at 40% support and 50% opposition, on the other hand, are using extensive interviews and are oversampling Democrats by a wide margin. Imagine that. Anyways, the point to the article was a worry that maybe "we" (good leftists) are underestimating his popularity and need to rethinking if being whiny b*tches is a good strategy. That's actually insightful. I hope they don't listen.

34 comments:

Okay, I had almost the exact same reaction to waking up to the Patriots win as I did to waking up to Trump's win. It went something like this - "WTF? How did THAT happen?? When I went to bed, all the experts/pundits told everyone that [fill in the blank] was gonna win!"

Bev, The only consolation for the non-ash*ole world is that all the front-running celebrity "fans" are cheering for a team whose quarterback, coach and owner are all friends of Trump. Hopefully, the irony will break their tiny minds.

Hmm. My takeaway from the Budweiser ad was that the ad was equating western-educated (and well educated at that) Adolphus Busch with the hostile, fundamentally (or is that fundamentalist) anti-western-values MENA diversity enhancers of today, what with all the hostility ol' AB received until he met his countryman Anheuser. Anyway, I'm not boycotting Bud, but that's only because I don't drink Bud anyway.

Thanks for clarifying the 84 Lumber thing. I had never heard of them before, but halfway through the ad HH6 and I turned to each other and said, "Dunno who or what 84 Lumber is, but they're not getting our business."

Just for the record, Budweiser is owned by InBev, a Belgian company. So technically the EU owns Budweiser. And even the family of Budweiser's (Anheiser-Busch) founder said that the commercial was not based on reality. Adolphus Busch, the founder was actually not a poor immigrant in 1870's, but came from a very wealthy family in Germany and St. Louis where he founded Busch Brewery was already had a large well-established German immigrant population. WWI had happened and the larger influx of immigrants did not really take off until the early 20th C.

Kit - I can imagine there were LOTS of jokes. I have been so shell-shocked with political assault entertainment lately, I didn't watch the game or Lady Gaga's halftime show which I heard was pretty spectacular.

And of course, I stepped into it on Twitter by mis-identifying "America The Beautiful" as our national anthem. But once I saw the politically-correct, properly racial mixed (sans Asian singer) trio singing it and changing the lyrics to suit their Women's March agenda, I kinda' lost my mind there for a second...

Mike, I don't drink Bud either, so it didn't really affect me either. I just didn't see much in the ad that didn't sound a like a typical "America is a nation of immigrants" story. I think that if immigration had not been in the news, people would have seen this ad as their attempt to create a rugged backstory premised on "the American dream." It felt manipulative, but not particularly politicized.

You're welcome on 84 Lumber. I've seen them a lot in the Western Pennsylvania/Pittsburgh region - the birthplace of plumber's crack. So the choice of this ad for them was really stupid. I could see Microsoft doing an ad like that, but not a processed lumber/plumbing supply place.

In terms of the ads overall last night, there were several that were rather offense I thought -- a lot of aggressive "diversity" ads -- but for the most part, the ads were just kind of flat.

tryanmax, I'm starting to see articles about the Democrat worrying that they are burning out the public and their own supporters with the constant outrages. They are even more worried that the protests have pushed their idiotic base even further left. So rather than blowing off steam, they are becoming even more extreme at a time when the public has reached the ends of their tolerance.

Bev, The Bud ad sounded like a corporation trying to invent a founder who appealed to the self-image of their customers rather than reality.

Dodge tried the same thing with a series of awful "Dodge Brothers" ads couple years ago. They invented these two young guys in their 20's who looked like male models dressed in 20's suits who would hang out with eye candy, compete with each other like drunken frat bothers, and drive the modern dodge vehicles like the guys on Top Gear all while the voice-over guy talked about how, if they were alive today, why "they would personally hand out the donuts at their car dealerships" and they would help little old ladies across the street and "they wanted everyone to have a square deal." In other words, they were genius good Samaritan bad boys with model wives and twenty-first century sensibilities. Super contradictory.

1. She suffered from muffin top, which people pointed out and has all the anti-body shamers, freaking out. DON'T CALL ME FAT, SLUT!!!DON'T CALL ME A SLUT, HEFFER!!" She also looked like she was wearing a diaper, which made her look old, out of shape and "tired."

2. Her song choice was basically just a medley of her radio hits. There was nothing interesting, nothing hot, nothing current, nothing edgy. Tired.

3. It all felt cleaned up. It was as if it were "Madame Gaga Presented By Disney!" She had lost her edge.

4. Her song were performed slightly more slowly than normal, causing her music to lose that dance edge and giving it a more "accessible" sound for middle America... where gay club music goes to die.

5. I think politically, she screwed up. The left was expecting a "F*CK YOU TRUMP!" somewhere and it didn't come. So they will be grumbling about it. At the same time, she didn't prepare anyone for her not saying anything, so a lot of people expected it. And when the only political statement she really made was "brought to you by Pepsi" she kind of declared herself a corporate pet. Again, that's not good for someone who lives by controversy.

6. Nothing about it was memorable. In fact, the ad that following it had Albert Einstein play the opening of "Bad Romance" on a violin. That was memorable and cool, and it showed up her act by showing just how banal her act had been.

Andrew, I agree completely with your assessment of Gaga's show. At it's conclusion, my wife looked at me and said, "Was that it?" There were no unexpected moments, no surprise artists, and there was a general lack of color and pizzazz. Most of her setlist is pushing the decade mark and sounded that way. "Born This Way" has become Gaga's theme song, and so lacks any political punch. The inclusion of a recent single that peaked low on the charts only made that more obvious. It was the part of the concert where the artist plays one off their latest album and half the audience wanders off for another beer. I don't think Gaga has quite reached the "adopting Guatemalan toddlers" phase of her career yet, but it's getting close.

tryanmax, I agree. For a woman whose career was one part shock, one part edgy singles, this was a dud. There was no new single, no new statement. It was like her act was filtered for mass appeal.

What's even strange is the slogan "love Trumps hate" would have made the left happy without offending anyone who likes her on the right, but she didn't even do that.

There are articles this morning saying she called for "unity" and her first two songs were patriotic, but not so you would notice. And then the whole act finished with the Pepsi logo looking like it was part of it -- after the opening light show reeking of Pepsi.

I have a few comments about your comments. These comments only reflect my little mind in my little world:

1. I didn't think Lady Gaga's performance was that bad. Before you get too hard on her on being a corporate shrill, I suspect her contract had significant penalties if she tried anything too edgy. The NFL does not like its brand sullied by old boobs (both definitions). Her act absolutely was filtered for mass appeal. There are a lot of kids and families who watch the game and halftime. The use of the drones was pretty cool.

2. As a Bronco fan, I hate the Patriots but I really admire Brady and Belichick. Any other Super Bowl, a team that far behind would have rolled over and just wanted to get out of there. Incredible perseverance. Great lesson for my kids to never quit; you sometimes have to reassess and make changes but don't quit.

3. It is so challenging to find out what is real and what is hyperbole around Trump. He definitely is aggressive so making a mistake on an Executive Order is almost expected. What the left doesn't get is most of the statements and actions he has taken that gets them the most riled up is exactly what most Americans want him to do. The left is probably realizing that their response is probably pushing more people away from their cause.

4. I still don't understand how a low court Federal Judge could have stopped an EO regarding a delay on immigrants from certain countries due to national security concerns. She called it unconstitutional but there is nothing in the constitution that states we have to allow non-citizens into the country for any reason. Heck, the green card and Visas prove that and they are dolled out based on rules set up by the State Dept. for each individual country. If there was a reason to remove a judge besides raping underaged children, this was it. This judge is injecting politics into law. Where am I wrong?

Anyone see the Super Bowl for the TV show based on Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, a feminist novel about a misogynistic theocracy? Because that's the kind of novel Super Bowl viewers like.

Can we just stop with the SB ads? They have reached the level of incredible stupidity. There was not one single memorable ad. Most of those that were memorable were because they pissed me off.

Peter Fonda in a $120,000 Mercedes? For what, f***king up his face when he wrecked his motorcycle 30 years ago? He was a damn drugged out drunk when I was growing up (he lived in Montana).

Whaaaa! My daughter will make less than a man because blah, blah, blah! Let me climb into my $80,000 Audi that I worked pretty hard for and cry. F**K YOU and your bullshit that has been proven incorrect for decades.

Cam Newton finally showed us his signature moves during a super bowel--against a bunch of 8 year olds. Loser.

Finally, 84 Lumber. The only way this ad would have been cool is if the poor Mexican family fighting their way through the desert came upon a 50 foot wall. Not that it matters here, but I would rather pay double down the street than give them a dime of my money.

1. There was nothing wrong with her performance, there just wasn't anything great about it. It felt like a very generic mass-produced show. Eh.

2. I hate you. Seriously, I do actually respect Belichick. Brady is harder because he's such a whiny bitch. What kills me though is the arrogance of the team, Brady and the fans. I hate the fans. Biggest bunch of whiny, self-righteous assholes on the planet. They are literally the only fan base I detest, though Seattle is trying hard to whine their way up there too.

3. I think with Trump, the media has gone full retard. They are running with any rumor without bothering with sources because they want it to be true and they don't care if it isn't. The problem is that people who normally are skeptical of leftist journalists are lapping this crap up.

4. Federal judges do have the power. They can issue an order stopping the Executive. If they are wrong, you appeal and they get overturned. We're on the appeal phase.

In terms of the basis for the decision, I have no idea. I don't see anything that support overturning the ban. There's certainly nothing in the constitution. The only thing it could be is that he might have exceeded the authority granted by Congress, but I don't see how.

Few were memorable, and those that were were for the wrong reasons for the most part. To me, the most memorable one was the 50 Shades of Grey takeoff by T-Mobile. The worst was the 84 Lumber one. That would have been funny if there had been a wall. Of course, if they wanted to be truthful, they also could have shown the girl sold into slavery by the cartel that smuggled her here.

Tom Brady is a great quarterback who is married to a super-model with a net worth about 2-3x more than him. He isn't even the highest paid quarterback (he is number 11) despite taking his team to unprecedented 7 Superbowls and winning 5 of them. We are in the midst of a Patriot's dynasty and should be talked about more than the previous ones with Steelers, Cowboys, and 49ers. This in an era of parity.

You can complain about Brady but the most important stats above speak for themselves. He is a winner. And he, and Belichick and Kraft were Trump supporters.

I would like to see him play next year in Uggs. I think he could go back to the playoffs wearing them.

One more thing about the superbowel ads. The best ad was at the end of the game where they showed the service men and women in the booth as if they were at the game with their family. Really classy and really cool. Sad that it came from a Korean Car company.

You can bash the fans of New England all you want. Most of them are hyper-liberal p***ies who would be the first to be purged in a communist take over. The rest are a bunch of Irish losers who were too stupid or drunk to leave the city and get a real job (like my ancestors).

A note on George H.W. Bush: He gets a lot of crap but his handling of the last few years of the Cold War was a master-stroke. Kept a very unstable and unpredictable situation from spiraling out of control.